"Theodore von Kármán, a Hungarian-American physicist, was the first to describe the physical processes that create long chains of spiral eddies like the one shown above. Known as von Kármán vortices the patterns can form nearly anywhere that fluid flow is disturbed by an object.

Since the atmosphere behaves like a fluid, the wing of an airplane, a bridge, even an island can trigger the distinctive phenomenon."

NASA says that von Kármán vortices have been spotted across the globe -- from the coast of Chile, to the skies over the Arctic.

This recent photo is just one of thousands of breath-taking images captured by NASA. An extensive image collection can be found on the NASA Flickr page.